Resident recalls old Seabrook of yesteryear

SEABROOK — Seabrook's Old Home Days is a chance for people to get together in one spot before the weather turns cold and school begins again, to have fun and reminisce while enjoying all of the festivities. It also happens to be held every year right around the birthday of Seabrook resident Merlene Tirone, who has secretly thought of the Old Home Days festivities as her own big birthday party.

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By Kiki Evans

seacoastonline.com

By Kiki Evans

Posted Aug. 9, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Kiki Evans

Posted Aug. 9, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

SEABROOK — Seabrook's Old Home Days is a chance for people to get together in one spot before the weather turns cold and school begins again, to have fun and reminisce while enjoying all of the festivities. It also happens to be held every year right around the birthday of Seabrook resident Merlene Tirone, who has secretly thought of the Old Home Days festivities as her own big birthday party.

"All I do is sit with my friends and talk," says Tirone.

Over the years she has sold sausage and pepper sandwiches for little league fundraising, or raffle tickets for the Happy Senior's 50-50 raffle.

As time has passed, so have many of the friends Tirone used to talk with on the day of the Old Home Days main event, but she has much to share about how life used to be in Seabrook.

"I went to first, second, and third grade at Farm Lane School, the Sanborn School for fourth, the Locke School for fifth, and the Dearborn Academy for sixth, seventh, and eighth," Tirone says, mentioning the many schools that used to dot the town.

"At Farm Lane, we had to go outside for the bathroom and lug our water from across the street. It was kept in a crock cooker in the back corner of the school and the wood stove, for which we had to go outside and bring in wood, was in the other back corner," she said. "At the Sanborn School, we used to go across the street at lunchtime and buy candy at Albertina Perkin's store, or nuts from Perry's Nut House. The Gladiola Farm was next to Albertina's and if we went to see Mel, he would give us a Glad for our mother once in a while."

Tirone continues, "The Locke School was fun, but that was back to carrying water from Ed Temple's well, right in the middle of the cow field. How healthy! It also had outhouses. We played baseball in Ed Temple's cow field and used 'pasture cookies' for bases. We slid down the hill in the winter, and frequently landed in the brook.

"At the Dearborn, some of the older boys from the South School brought movies over once a week and we watched them, pairing up girlfriend and boyfriend, sitting together. We loved that day. We used to go down the street and sit on the rock wall for lunch, a little past the old homestead of Lydia Pinkham. Now and then we would go to the brick building where her body was lying in rest and sit on the steps for our lunch. We had to bring sandwiches until we got to high school."

Singing has always been a big part of Tirone's life, and she has been in many choirs over the years, with a group called, "The Harmony Honeys," and "The Wildwood Choir," which Tirone joined in seventh grade and stayed with for many years.

"There were 17 of us and we spent most every day together and got along like sisters, we still feel that way about each other," she said. "We had three parts and were very good and well known around the area, but our director, Lillian Dow, limited our appearances, and wouldn't allow us to get paid for singing. A man named Hal Williams came to her and wanted us to record 'The Three Bells,' and she wouldn't allow it. He got permission from her to use her arrangement and the Singing Nuns in Canada recorded it, then Jim Ed Brown and his sisters bought the rights to it."

Tirone continues, "There are still two members of the original choir singing at the Rand Church. Emily Sanborn and Jean Moore never left, and they have been in the choir for over fifty years. Our picture still hangs on the wall in the choir's corner.

"We used to have a gang that sang under the pier on River Street, every night. Some brought guitars and we sang way into the wee hours of the night," she says.

"We used to all pile into one car and drive to Gene Littlefield's Jenny (gas) Station, order 50 cents' worth of gas, and go to Salisbury Beach to get 'beach pizza,' singing all the way. We'd ride around until all the gas was gone. Many times, we had to push the car into his station to get more!"

Recalling one humorous Old Home Days memory, Tirone says, "John Penny always used to ask me to sing with his band. I was singing 'Crazy' while my son was driving in with his girlfriend. She asked who that was that was singing Patsy Cline's song, and knowing it was me, he backed out and wouldn't go to Old Home Days."